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Saturday, December 04, 1999

Internetworking

The Internet hunting club for women started by Salem's Dolores Farmer is most popular hunting club site on Yahoo.

By Mark Taylor Outdoors Editor

When Dolores Farmer decided to take up hunting just over a year ago, the Internet guru thought she knew exactly where to go for information: cyberspace.

She thought wrong.

“There were lots of hunting pages on the Internet,” recalls Farmer, a 40-year-old computer consultant from Salem. “But they were talking about things like reloading ammunition.”

Before she learned how to reload her own shells, Farmer needed to learn the basics. Figuring there might be other women who wanted to help each other learn more about hunting, she started a women's hunting club on Yahoo's Internet site.

“I thought I'd be lucky to have eight or 10 women join,” Farmer says.

Again, she was wrong.

As of the middle of this week, Farmer's Yahoo hunting club for women had 385 members on its rolls. It is by far the largest of Yahoo's 149 hunting clubs, having attracted members — both men and women — from across the country and around the world.

“I'm stunned,” Farmer says. “I didn't know there were that many women in the country that hunted.

“We're having a good time and the club is still growing.”

The atmosphere in the club, which can be found at http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/womenhunters, isn't a lot different than what you might find at a traditional hunting club — sans the cigar smoke.

Sometimes the members get together to “chat” with each other in an electronic clubhouse. Many members have posted pictures from their hunting adventures on the club's site.

The electronic bulletin board seems to be the club's most popular feature. Nearly 5,000 messages have been posted on the board, with topics including hunting reports, hunting questions and hunting advice. The current hot subject? “How do I find a good man that hunts?” a question posed by “Gina,” a 27-year-old from Wisconsin.

Roanoke resident Keith Martin, a club member and a longtime friend of Farmer's, believes he knows why the club has become so popular.

“Women hunters don't have a good old boy network,” Martin says. “They're spread out over the country. This is a place where they can get together. It's like a campfire.”

Ann Horseman, a 37-year-old deputy sheriff from Michigan, joined the club a few months ago.

“I look in there every day to see what's going on,” she says.

Online, Horseman offered a snappy reply to Gina's question, but she says she most appreciates how the site has helped her become a better hunter.

“It's very informative,” said Horseman, who started hunting seriously only this year. “A lot of people give you a lot of tips on things like scent control, stalking and equipment.

“I think it's a great tool.”

Horseman says much of the valuable information comes from the club's male members, a group that includes professional hunter Tink Nathan, inventor of popular hunting products such as Tink's 69 buck lure.

Some club members have formed friendships that stretch beyond the boundaries of cyberspace. Horseman says she regularly talks with several new friends over the phone and by e-mail. Some of the club members are planning a boar-hunting trip to a hunting lodge in Tennessee next spring.

When she founded the club, Farmer says, she hoped it would help her meet Roanoke-area women with whom she could hunt. That hasn't happened yet, but the club has nonetheless helped Farmer learn more about a sport she started not of her own free will, but at the urging of her son Justin, who is now 7.

“I kept telling him, 'Justin, Mommy doesn't know how to hunt,' ” recalls Farmer, whose husband, Eddie, is an avid fisherman who rarely hunts.

Dolores Farmer finally relented to Justin's pleas and enrolled in a hunter education course. While attending the course, she met hunter education instructor Jerry Jenkins, whom she credits with helping her become more than casually interested in hunting.

While keeping up with the fast-growing club, Farmer's dedication as a hunter also has grown. She has taken pheasants at a Virginia hunting preserve, and, with Justin at her side, killed a wild boar during a hunt on a ranch in Tennessee.

Though she enjoys hunting with rifles, shotguns and muzzleloaders, Farmer says bow hunting has become her favorite type of hunting. She recently put away her high-tech compound bow and began hunting with a classic recurve bow. She and Justin also have built a longbow, and Farmer says she'd like to build another that is powerful enough to be used for big-game hunting.

Despite spending countless days in the Virginia woods in pursuit of deer, Farmer has yet to take her first whitetail. She missed a deer during the early archery season this fall, and has passed up several shots she didn't feel comfortable taking. With a month of bow hunting and black powder season remaining, she's holding out hope that she'll take her first deer this year.

“We're still working on it,” says Farmer, who often takes to the woods with Justin at her side. “I'm still optimistic that before the season is out, we'll get one.”

Farmer says she knows she is doing a good thing by introducing Justin — and the couple's 3-year-old daughter, Jessica — to the outdoors.

“I didn't want my children growing up just sitting in front of a computer or a Nintendo,” she says.

Farmer realizes the irony of that statement.

“I don't want my kids to get overwhelmed by technology,” she says. “Yet it's technology that has allowed me to bring this club together.”